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If you’re a cynic, this is not the album for you. I’m not a fan of love songs, myself – they tend to be too sad, too sappy, or both at once. This album hits a happy medium. It’s sweet, sometimes bittersweet, but never too much. I even liked the lyrics, which is where a lot of indie folk loses me.

I’ll straight-up admit it. I haven’t listened to post-punk since the nineties, and I pretty much left the genre for dead. Belgian post-punk band Rape Blossoms’ new album “Ruinenlust” reminded me why I liked the genre in the first place, but it manages to avoid wallowing in the sticky nostalgia that waits like a tar pit for the unwary musician.

Sault Ste. Marie band Jack Spades released The First April 20th, thirteen solid minutes of driving punk thrash with a rock and roll feel. It’s an album you want to turn up while driving – I just wish there was more of it so I could drive a little further!

Let’s face it, it’s hard to find a band that covers subjects from the vileness of Colonel Steel to Israel’s use of white phosphorus. Disworship, however, is that band. From the first burst of feedback on their self-titled album released April 18th 2014, they use a relentlessly sludgy doom grind to destroy consumerism, worship, and the tyranny of torturous regimes.

The Van Dammes new VD EP is a fluffy, catchy, eight-minute slice of 80s garage-tinged pop punk. It sounds like they’d be a fun band to see live, too. The lyrics are perkier than what I’m used to hearing from punk bands lately. In retrospect, though, “Rock & Roll High School” wasn’t exactly Tolstoy either.